I want to make my beer stronger - how far is sensible?

[Bromley Brewery]

OK, so if I am doing a 40 pint normal kit and I add what they say in terms of spraymalt and/or glucose, the question is:

- can I just add a bit more glucose to get the ABV up a bit?
- how much more is sensible - 100g? - 500g?

whaddya think ?

[williamoid]

hi, i asked the same question to the lady in my local hb shop in glasgow.
she said, make 30 pints instead of 40 using the same sugar you would for 40.
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[Waffty]

Malt extract (wort) is made up of several types of sugar, some of which turns to alcohol, some of which remain & make up the body of the brew.

So adding lots of fermentable sugar will increase the alcohol content but it could also make for a watery mouth feel drink, as the balance is upset.

What the homebrew lady advised is a good way to increase the alcohol content & also retain the body of the beer i.e check out most IPA kits & you'll see, as a rule they make less beer i.e 20l as opposed to 23l.

If you do want to increase the strength by adding more fermatable sugar, then go for spray dried malt (dried malt extract DME) or try one of the beer enhancer kits i.e Gordie make one.

Doing the above could also give you too much sweetness, which you may need to offset with additional hops.

So to conclude, drop down the water content & only use malt extract & you won't go too far wrong

[Bromley Brewery]

Cheers chaps,

Seems you can't get something for nothing, as I suspected.